US attorney-general cites Bible in defence of tough immigration policy

By Keith McMillan & Julie Zauzmer

15 June 2018 — 12:27pm

Washington: US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions has used a Bible verse to defend his department's policy of prosecuting everyone who crosses the border from Mexico, suggesting that God supports the government in separating immigrant parents from their children.

"I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes," Sessions said during a speech to law enforcement officers in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on Thursday, local time.

US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions is citing the Bible in defending the Trump administration’s policy of separating parents from the children after they enter the US illegally. Credit:AP

"Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves. Consistent and fair application of the law is in itself a good and moral thing, and that protects the weak and protects the lawful."

Historian Yoni Appelbaum pointed out, using a search of Bible verses cited in newspaper articles, that Romans 13 used to be cited frequently in the 1840s and '50s, but very rarely since then. The reason? The verse was used to justify following the Fugitive Slave Act, during the nation's fierce debate over the morality of slavery.

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Sessions announced in May a zero-tolerance policy in which the Justice Department would begin prosecuting everyone who crosses the south-west border with Mexico. Part of the policy shift meant that migrants travelling with children and unaccompanied minors end up detained; US law charges the parents with a crime, but not the children, which means they're held separately.

The Associated Press cites US Customs and Border Protection figures from two weeks in May in which more than 650 children were separated from parents.

Sessions has said "we've got to get this message out" that asylum seekers or anyone else immigrating through unofficial means is given immunity. He appealed to "church friends" later in Thursday's speech in Fort Wayne, emphasising that non-citizens who enter the United States illegally are breaking the law.

People line up to protest Jeff Sessions and immigration reform in Fort Wayne, Indiana on Thursday.Credit:Journal-Gazette/AP

On the same issue, other religious groups and individuals have cited the Bible as well, to take the opposite side. On Thursday afternoon, for instance, the Migrants and Refugees Section at the Vatican tweeted a verse of Deuteronomy: "The Bible teaches that God 'loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt' (Deuteronomy 10:18-19)."

At a meeting of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on Wednesday, the nation's Catholic leaders strongly condemned the administration's immigration policies as immoral, with one bishop going so far as to suggest that Catholics who help carry out the Justice Department's policies are violating their faith and perhaps should be denied Communion.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during a briefing on Thursday that she hadn't seen Sessions' comments, but she backed his line of thinking.

"I can say that it is very biblical to enforce the law. That is actually repeated a number of times throughout the Bible," she said. "It's a moral policy to follow and enforce the law."

A person looks through a section of a US-Mexico border wall in Tijuana, Mexico.Credit:Bloomberg

Government officials occasionally refer to the Bible as a line of argument - take, for instance, the Republicans who have quoted 2 Thessalonians, "if a man will not work, he shall not eat" to justify more stringent food stamps requirements - but the verse that Sessions cited, Romans 13, is an unusual choice.

The evangelical polling group Barna found that evangelical Christians' attitudes toward immigration seem to be warming somewhat. In 2016, Barna found that 42 per cent of evangelicals agreed with the statement "We allow too many immigrants into the country," compared with 30 per cent of American adults overall. By the next year, just 23 per cent of adults overall agreed, and 31 per cent of evangelicals.